I have been very lucky throughout my life to have had the direction, advice, love, friendship and support of a lot of fantastic people and this section of my blog is devoted to those family, friends and colleagues whose lives have now ended but who continue to influence me and my thinking and on whose shoulders I have attempted to stand.
The pages come from different sources there are a couple of eulogies that I have been invited to deliver there are obituries that have appeared in MSAGB publications and other pages that are just my particular memories of people who have made a difference to my life.
The “standing on the shoulders of giants” quotation has various antecedence starting perhaps as the metaphor of dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants (Latin: nanos gigantum humeris insidentes) to express the meaning of “discovering truth by building on previous discoveries”. While it can be traced to at least the 12th century, its most familiar expression in English is found in a letter from Isaac Newton to his rival Robert Hooke dated February 1676 that: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” “Standing on the shoulders of giants” is also the edge inscription on two pound coins.
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